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The question was posed to me recently of a Nuremberg or The Hague style Tribunal for Bush and his administration in regards to the Iraq adventure camp.
What would you try him for? Don't get me wrong, I've been against the war from day 1, but the Congress was foolish enough to authorize him. The claim now is that we were lied to, and we most definitely were, without a doubt. Problem is, those who had their ear to the ground were aware of those lies very early on, before we ever went to war. CIA and National Intelligence Assessments were available and critics of the war were already highlighting the cherry-picking and fact stretching going on. The Powers That Be even thought it necessary to out a CIA operative because her hubbie got uppity, but in the grand scheme of this debacle this fact is a small cobblestone on the road to a Project for a New American Century pre-planned invasion. Congress may not have been privy to ALL the information the White House was getting but there was plenty of questions that needed to be seriously raised, and in the defense of some, they tried, but it was quickly brushed aside for "shock and awe" prime time bullshit. I was disgusted that the networks didn't for a minute bother to consider or remind us that there were innocent civilians on the ground as the bombs were falling, as far as they were concerned it was one big fucking fireworks show.
On to what he/they should stand trial for, torture and illegal detainment of foreign combatants. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented over 1, 000 illegal "renditions" of prisoners, some to countries where they were tortured and held without rights. More than 100 detainees have died on Bush's watch, over half are suspected homicides. We've all seen the Abu Ghraib photos and these are just what we've seen, I'll bet the results at the secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe are far worse, they just don't have rookies snapping tourist pics of obvious tested torture techniques that were available to be broken down by ex-intelligence agents as to exactly what was being done and why. Some of the newest reports have Rumsfeld at and aware of outlawed practices being authorized and utilized at Guantanamo Bay.
Further on Gitmo, we call them "enemy combatants" and justify it that there are terror suspects and therefore citizens of no nation, but there are several holes in this theory. The Taliban fighters are obviously Afghani, they claim to be Afghani and fought on Afghani soil, we may not like that they shot at American soldiers, allies and aid workers but they should fall under the same protections that we provided for much worse and dangerous foes e.g. German enlisted men in WWII. Secondly, even the real terror suspects, members of al Qaida and related organizations (a ridiculous notion, it makes them sound like a small business cooperative) should be afforded everything that the worst of the worst would never provide us. These are our stated ideals and to stray from them in the name of some measure of phantom security is wrong and morally repugnant. You'll never change the hearts and minds of those that see America as the Great Satan by being the Great Satan. If the detainees are guilty of a variety of crimes, be it terrorism, crimes against humanity, etc. our justice system or an international court is perfectly capable of trying them and meting out sufficient punishment.
We've been led to believe that those being caged are dangerous and vile, yet many have been released, some have told awful stories of what occurred in captivity. The American Red Cross stated that in Iraq the average soldier didn't have the time, training or information to determine threats in a town that had been taken by coalition forces, so they rounded them up to be questioned and referenced against existing intel. Many of these, obviously innocent bystanders, ended up in prisons like Abu Ghraib and were subjected to brutality. The most heinous criminal I've heard mentioned at Gitmo is Osama bin Laden's driver. Thank God, I can sleep tonight, we got the terrorist's wheelman. Torture and the status of foreign fighters have repeatedly been outlawed or legislated by the United Nations and the American Government as recently as the 1990's. Now is the time to uphold those moral convictions and do the right thing, to prevent it from ever happening to our own citizens and to stand up for the better world the American ideal is supposed to represent. The Shining City on a Hill does not torture and it does not disappear people for nearly half a decade or more in the name of a war on a noun. The official position is that they can be held until the end of the war, not the Iraq war which will be long enough but the War on Terror or "Terra" as our great and fearless leader would say. How Orwellian, with the definition of the war based on your own whims and very loose definitions. Will we still be holding Arab prisoners when Islamic fundamentalism has been wiped out and we've moved on to Icelandic extremists?
In a perfect world the architects of this war: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle would be tried and punished and likely hanged. Lesser pieces: Rice, Powell, Kristol, Rove, McClellan would be called on to answer for their actions. It will never happen, even at Nuremberg they wouldn't or couldn't try the Nazis for crimes the Allies had also committed (the wholesale bombing of cities, mass executions and the like). The insurgents have certainly committed their share of atrocities but that is irrelevant, larger nations have always written the rules to favor them and insulate their leaders from having to answer for the crimes of war, genocide, torture and bombing campaigns. When Chile has a difficult time putting Pinochet on trial, it will be a cold day in Hell before the worst administration in American history will be brought to justice.
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